MEMOIR OF BRUCE. 59 



and the use of fumigation, so contrary to the suffo- 

 cating system and the cramming with raw heef as 

 practised in Ahyssinia, was attended with the hap- 

 piest results. His patients were at length considered 

 out of danger, and hy way of fee he received the 

 present of a house in the immediate vicinity of the 

 palace, where he continued to reside, agreeably to 

 the most positive command of Ras Michael, not to 

 leave his charge until further orders. The leisure 

 thus afforded him he employed in mounting his 

 instruments, and making some astronomical and 

 meteorological observations. 



On the 8th of March, Bruce proceeded to Azazo 

 to meet the Ras, who had arrived with the troops 

 at that place. That extraordinary person, feared 

 and hated by every individual in Abyssinia, \vas 

 dressed in a coarse dirty cloth, wrapped about him 

 like a blanket, with a sort of table-cloth folded 

 about his head. He was lean, old, and lame, with 

 sore eyes, and sat stooping upon a favourite mule ; 

 but he was too much occupied with military busi- 

 ness to enter into discourse with the stranger. He 

 li.;;_d just gained a victory over the Galla tribes, and 

 the first horrid proof of it which he exhibited was 

 causing the eyes of twelve of their chiefs, whom he 

 had taken prisoners, to be pulled out, and the un- 

 fortunate sufferers to be turned sightless into the 

 desert, to be devoured at night by the hyaenas. 



Next day, the army, about 30,000 strong, marched 

 into the town in triumph ; the Ras took the com- 

 mand of the troops at Tigre ; he was bareheaded, 



